Ripple Labs is expanding its presence to the Asia Pacific region, opening an office in Sydney, Australia.

Ripple Labs is expanding its presence to the Asia-Pacific region, opening an office in Sydney, Australia. The company has appointed Dilip Rao as Managing Director of the new subsidiary.

The move to the region is motivated by its high activity in cross-border payments such as remittances. Ripple’s theme, according to its homepage, is to allow everyone to participate in the global economy. The company therefore envisions an abundance of opportunity in the region. CEO and co-founder Chris Larsen said that there was an aggressive pursuit for faster payments technologies, for both domestic and cross-border payments.

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He also said that Dilip’s 25 years of experience in the area and “deep, engaged network” made him a natural fit. He reportedly consulted for major banks and corporates in Australia on innovation and was the founder of Australia’s first p2p payments startup. His role will be to work with leading banks, regulators and even central banks in support of Ripple’s adoption.

The new office is actively recruiting for integration engineers and other key roles.

Ripple’s currency, XRP, set multi-month highs late last year in the wake of several real world achievements. However, its market cap has fallen by as much as 70% from those highs as speculators cash in during a pause in the good news stream.